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Here is one fact about me that is not obvious on this blog: I am an absolute foundation geek. It is my favourite makeup product and I have to admit that I have a ridiculous collection of them. To me, it is only fun and I am perfectly able to go out without wearing anything on my face but I like to try new textures and new finishes.

In the morning I decide on what foundation to wear (or if I am going to wear any) depending on my mood of the day, the result I want to achieve or the outfit I have picked. In my previous post I mentioned the fact that I don't follow fashion trends. For foundations though, it is quite the opposite as I keep myself up to date and it is not uncommon for me to turn up in Sephora asking for something that the sales assistant is not even aware of yet. So obviously when the whole internet was raving about Giorgio Armani foundations a few months ago, I had to get my own opinion of them. I bought the Luminous Silk Foundation before the Summer and got myself the Power Fabric more recently. As I have had enough time to play with both of them, I can now give you my honest opinion on both.

I love foundations that don't look caky and that make my skin look healthy and glowy. With the Luminous Silk foundation, you have a great product if this is what you are looking for and you want medium coverage. I find that it tends to shine a bit on the T zone by the end of the day so you want to powder it properly (and the award for the worse companion goes to Mika's mixed skin!) Also it is not extremely long lasting however it makes your skin look very healthy and is barely visible on the skin. To me, it is definitely a great product but if I'm completely honest, I think that you can get a very good dupe of the Luminous Silk Foundation with the new Bourjois Healthy Mix formula for something like 4 times less money.

My opinion of this one is very mixed. On the one hand, it is extremely long lasting, it offers really high coverage and my skin looks fantastic after applying it. But what really disappointed me about it was that if like me you have dry areas, it really migrates to dry patches and to wrinkles and after an hour, the result is not so great anymore. I'm going to be fair to it though: at the moment I am using an anti-acne product which works really well (I have planned to write about it soon) but which has dried my skin a bit. Also the result is not that catastrophic once I have applied a good hydrating cream. I still have the problem that it goes straight into expression wrinkles after an hour or two and that's a bugger. I think that this foundation would be absolutely awesome for anyone with normal to greasy skin but definitely not someone with mixed or dry skin. I think that the Estée Lauder Double Wear would be a great dupe to it and I'm not even mentioning the unfortunately discontinued Shiseido Perfect Base (RIP, I will miss you loads) which to me is simply the best foundation that I have ever tried - I am definitely keeping an eye on Shiseido this year as they are renewing their whole makeup collection.

Conclusion

You might think: "great, so you have reviewed the two and neither is quite the perfection that has been announced everywhere." True, BUT...

I mixed both and Oh My God!

It's very simple, they balance each other's flaws and the mix of them is just perfect: glowy but long lasting, good coverage but does not mark dry areas, and the look of my skin! Seriously, I think we have something here. It's just a shame that you would have to shell out €100 to get this result. I'm going to be honest, it's not worth the investment but if you already have both in your possession then just try blending both. You'll see, it's awesome. And if you don't have both, stay tuned for the new Natural Radiant Longwear Foundation by Nars. I think it will have to be my next pal.

Have you tried any of these foundations? Let me know what you think of them!

If you know me well, you might be aware that I have always been a very opinionated and principled person. I can at times be very black and white and I am quite rigid in what I judge to be good enough or not. And this definitely applies to fashion. With years of experience with clothes, I have built up a set of implicit rules that I abide by. Of course, I don't go shopping with a note pad and a check list, only buying items that tick all the boxes. Those principles have become for me a very handy natural filter and although I don't really think about them when shopping, my choices always instinctively follow suit. Of course, they are my rules and you might think the complete opposite of me - everyone has their own taste after all. However I am sure that we have at least a couple of them in common.

Here we go!

⭑1. Don't wear visible brands.

My motto when it comes to fashion? "Elegance is what you don't see". The very reason I have thought about writing this article is the bag I am wearing on this look. Usually, I don't like Michael Kors bags as I find them quite bling - and god knows I hate anything bling. I know that 80% of women love them but I really don't like this massive MK that you can spot from miles around and I have never liked monogram bags for the same reason. To me, this brand is not always what I consider elegant. However the subtle look of this one caught my eyes straight away which is funny as I was just telling my granny "I really don't like this brand." I probably looked like a lunatic to her but she's used to it. What I like about this bag (on top of its cut of course) is that when I'm wearing it, I don't feel like I'm trying to make a point to everyone that I am wearing a designer bag. Now don't misunderstand me, I am not saying that I hate brands. Unfortunately, it's quite the opposite. I love quite a few which my bank account wishes I didn't (if you know about Maje, Sandro, Claudie Pierlot, Manoush, BA&SH, Bel Air and Sezane you will understand my sorrow) but none of them display their logo anywhere. In real life, I don't think that everyone needs to know where my clothes come from. If I could sum up my thinking in one sentence, it would be that (to me) showing off "expensive" brands looks cheap.

⭑2. If it works for you, don't try to change it.

I have had the same style for years. I am very good at buying the same item in 5 different colours only because I like how it fits me. My mom often makes fun of me because of my passion for officer jackets or Repetto loafers but this monomaniac side of me does not bother me in the slightest!

⭑3. Don't pay attention to what others think.

From very early, there has always been people to make fun of my style. A girl used to call me "rag girl" back in high school and even if her intentions were not necessarily kind, I have never felt hurt by that. Even today, my dad is often appalled at my sense of fashion and none of my sisters share my tastes. Luckily, I have always been quite bully-proof and very rarely influenced by others. Usually, I am the first to laugh along with my dad about some of my clothes and for instance I never check with my boyfriend if he likes my clothes (because I would still wear them even if he didn't).

⭑4. Don't follow trends for the sake of it.

I love clothes, but I couldn't care less about trends. I am not interested in constantly seeking for hype, I have stopped buying magazines a long time ago and for having read a few books written by models, it confirms my thought that the fashion industry is not all glam and glitter.

⭑5. Know your cheap shops.

There are so many affordable brands that do amazing clothes. You might have noticed by now that one of my favourite shops is ZARA. Honestly, that shop never lets me down. But I also often get lucky with Topshop, H&M, Mango, Bershka and Pull and Bear for instance. However I really don't get the whole madness about Primark. I find that their clothes often look seriously cheap. and I'm not speaking of price: to me, it's not because it's cheap that it has to look cheap. I do find nice items from time to time but it takes me a lot of effort to find one thing that I like and which doesn't look like plastic so usually I just don't bother going in. I am also not drawn to their range of colours either. I know that we are now living in the era of fast fashion but I tend to keep my clothes for ages so long as they are in one piece and I find it hard to keep anything more than 6 months with Primark.

⭑6. Avoid useless details.

I think I can sum up my style very well: colour blocks, minimalist cuts, good quality material and no extra fuss. I usually don't like frills, ornaments, messages or brands, sequins, embroideries etc. I love a good pattern but it has to be all over and consistent like on this dress. Typically, brands like Guess, Morgan, River Island or Desigual don't find a good customer in me.

⭑7. Know your body shape.

Since I don't have the body of Marilyn Monroe, I don't try to dress like Marilyn Monroe. I am so used to my morphology that I can tell if an item is going to fit me by just looking at it on the coat hanger. The task has been made easy by the fact that I pretty much have kept the same body since I was 15. I know what fits me and I stick to it.

⭑8. Avoid total looks.

Typically, if you have spent a few years in Essex and have had the privilege to go to a few nightclubs there, you will know what I mean by total look. I have always found prom dresses completely has-been and the combo "shiny tight dress, high heels, fake tan, fake nails, fake lashes, curly hair and too much makeup" horrendous. It's funny because I have been asked "how do you French girls manage to get this effortless look?" a couple of times when I was in the UK. My answer to that? "You call it effortless for a reason..."

⭑9. Buy the right size.

It sounds obvious but I often see people wearing clothes that are too tight. Honestly, it does not look good and it is mostly very uncomfortable or even unhealthy. For instance, even if I didn't think it was still possible past 25, I recently had to accept that my feet have grown and that I now need to buy a bigger size. Yay!

You might be aware of my passion for earrings as I dedicated a whole article to some of my earrings in my early blogging years (which makes me realise how much progress I have made in two years when it comes to photography).

I have recently welcomed a few newcomers to my collection and I have to say that those two play on a different level of earring cuteness.

The cristal earrings* come from a massive and very old French, family-owned shop which has been specialised in cristal for more than 130 years. Obviously I don't live in France anymore so the internet is your saviour if you want to check what they have in stock: home decoration, cristal jewels, you name it.

Personally, I really like these ones as they are typically the type of thing that I wear: elegant and simple. For me, they are perfect to add the final touch to a smart outfit but they can also work with any everyday outfit too.

The wooden earrings have been on my shopping list for about a year and my other half probably started feeling sorry for me as he just ordered them out of the blue. Salomé is an artist who makes elegant and modern wooden jewellery and honestly, I could buy the whole website. She is also a really kind and thoughtful person: my parcel got lost on its way to Spain and she was kind enough to re-send it to me without a question AND she had left a kind little note in my parcel thanking me for my patience!

I wish you all the best and sincerely hope that you will be successful in anything you attempt this year.

I have had this article ready for about two weeks but was hesitating publishing it as I am by no means a motivational guru. I just wanted to share with you these little things and positive thoughts that have helped me achieve my goals. I won't pretend that I have come up with a magical formula that turned my life into a fairy tale. Like anyone, I have had rubbish moments but I think that I have learnt a lot from past mistakes and I have dramatically changed my mindset and my life in a couple of years.

A few weeks ago, I shared a very inspirational video on my Facebook page which made me think about the things that I have done to achieve my goals and which have been working.

I think that I could sum it up into 7 steps/principles which I would like to share with you for the start of this new year. Obviously, this is what has been working for me but I am sure that a lot of them make sense and can be applied to anyone.

⭑ 1. Don't listen to others and believe in yourself only...

I have known what job I wanted to do since I was 14. I have also been very clear on what I would study at Uni. In school, I was one of the top achievers in my cohort so for a lot of people, "ending up" studying languages was a waste of my time. I was called "a poet", I was told that I would end up jobless, that I was wasting my potential, some people kept asking me when I would stop studying to get myself any job because what mattered was to be able to pay the bills. Regardless of that, I completed my Masters (after a little detour by a nursing school but I'll explain it better in my next point). I had also planned to live abroad after Uni and again, I had to put up with people's opinion on that. "What will you do there?", "Who is going to pay for your rent?", "Find yourself a real job in France first and then you can just travel like everyone", "Stop being so naive", "You're not going to succeed" were the type of comment that I heard on a regular basis. I never listened and went to the UK where I got the opportunity to complete a second Post Graduate. Today I can say that it is, by far, the best decision that I have ever made in my entire life because it changed it completely and I have shut everyone's mouth around me.

⭑ 2. ...But accept that you made the wrong decision and try again.

It's ok to acknowledge that you have taken the wrong path and to start things all over again. For instance, when I was in Lycée (equivalent to 6th Form), I had chosen subjects which I slowly started to hate. I went to the Educational Adviser's office during the Summer holiday to tell him that I wanted to change to do business and sociology instead. I was told that I could not go up a year while changing subjects and that doing my year again was a real shame so I'd better stay where I was. As I wouldn't take no for an answer when it involved my future, I insisted and got what I wanted. When I went back home to tell my dad that I was going to fall one year behind, I thought he was going to have a heart attack but I did not care because I knew what I wanted and that was all that mattered.

Later, between my Bachelors and my Masters I had a moment of doubt (which I have mentioned here). At that time, I thought that the path that I was taking was not compatible with living abroad so I started considering a job that could potentially give me some flexibility even though I had no real appeal to it. That's when the idea of becoming a nurse came to me. Everyone who knew me was wondering why on earth I had chosen that path and my family advised me against it but I still took the competitive exam to enter the nursing school and enrolled - in France, the selection is done at the start so once you're in you are sure to graduate at the end of the three-year course. I think that from early enough though I realised that this job wouldn't fulfil me but I gave it a chance and kept going. After a year wondering what I was doing there, I left. At this stage, I had "wasted" two years but never regretted it. You might think "you just said "don't listen to others" but if you had listened to your family, you wouldn't have wasted your time at the nursing school" and that's a fair point. But I disagree with this for two reasons: I prefer trying and thinking "thanks but no thanks" rather than "what if?" and never get an answer. The second reason, and the most important to me is that this experience made me realise that I wanted to do what I liked, and nothing else.

⭑ 3. Take risks.

This might be linked to what I have just said, but I do believe that if you never take risks then you can't really achieve anything. Taking risks involves the possibility of failure and that's why some people find it so hard to just go for it. It's normal to have fears. Even if you are determined, people's negativity can make you doubt slightly at times. But if your fear of living a meaningless and mediocre life is stronger than your fear of failing, you have done half the journey. There are always millions of excuses not to make a change in your life: kids to feed, a family that would disapprove in your choice, a rent or a mortgage to pay, the fear of losing a stable situation etc. but we all have examples of people around us who ended up having to make a change because life was sort of forcing them to. They would not have taken the first step themselves because of all the reasons I just mentioned, but because they had no choice, they did it anyway. What I have learnt from observing people in this situation is that most of the time, their only regret was to not have done it sooner. Joanne Rowling once said "It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case you fail by default." Honestly, I am not sure I can add anything to that.

⭑ 4. Don't compare yourself.

You probably have heard the saying "comparison is the thief of joy" (I'm in the mood for a few quotes today!) Well, I completely agree with it. Usually, when we compare ourselves to someone, it is only to torture ourselves with this idea that they are more clever, successful, beautiful... than us and while we are doing this, we completely forget what makes us special. In other words, we are focused on them rather than ourselves. I have a very simple example for this: when I stopped reading feminine press a few years ago, I noticed that it matched the moment I stopped wasting my time with complexes. It might not be the only reason as I also just grew up and evolved, but at some stage, I was not interested in this self-flagellation anymore and I just wanted to take a more positive approach towards myself because nobody else was going to do it for me. This video sums it up better than me.

⭑ 5. Have high expectations for yourself.

I'm going to be honest: I'm an absolute control freak. I love when things are done to perfection and I am very hard on myself. Unfortunately for them, I have the same expectations of others, whether it's at work or in everyday situations so I can be quite rigid and opinionated. When I think that what I'm doing is not good enough, I barely cut myself any slack until I'm happy with it. Be careful though: even if I believe that having high expectations for yourself is a key to success, it is important to find the right level as it can easily turn into a chronic "I could still do better than that" problem (which I sometimes have).

⭑ 6. Be organised.
As Benjamin Franklin put it (last quote, I promise!) - "By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail".
If you are all over the place there is a chance that you miss deadlines and important things to do. The chance is even bigger that you don't manage your time properly and end up producing very average work. For me, one good way to tackle the problem is to make lists. Lists are great to gather your thoughts and ticking boxes is very satisfying. They are also a good way to avoid procrastination. A good friend of mine once told me "I don't need lists because it's all in there" (insert head emoji) and I told her "That's precisely what I want to avoid". I don't want to constantly have a gazillion things cluttering my mind so instead, I put them on paper to be able to focus on other things and I come back to my list when I need to.

⭑ 7. Have long-term purpose.
Of all the points that I mentioned, to me this is the most important and I think that this is what helped me get where I am today. It is directly linked to the video that I mentioned in my intro and to my points 2 and 3. What is worse than sticking to something that you don't like for months or even years only because you are too scared to make your situation worse or simply because you can't admit that you were wrong? A lot of the time, people simply dwell on short-term satisfactions not to have to look at the bigger picture. Their life does not make them happy but all they want to focus on is the nice dinner they will have after their horrible day at work, or their Friday night out with their friends to forget about their rubbish week. I don't think that wishing your life away is the solution and I refuse to be the type of person who sucks it up for too long when my personal situation does not fulfil me. So if you feel like you don't have purpose, read my third point again.